


glass and steel

by sparxwrites



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blindness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Internalised ableism, Seeing Eye Cat Frumpkin, Service Animals, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 13:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17602223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: They take Caleb first, and then they take his eyes, and when the Mighty Nein come to rescue him there is nothing left to save.





	glass and steel

They take Caleb first, and then they take his eyes, and when the Mighty Nein come to rescue him there is nothing left to save.

Caduceus tries first, hands warm on Caleb’s cheeks. Furred thumb-pads press against the sallow skin and fragile bone of Caleb’s undereye. When he speaks, it’s low enough that Caleb feels the rolling vibration of it in his chest. “There’s some things even the gods can’t fix,” he says, calmly, as he pulls his hands away, leaving Caleb’s face cold and the hollow knot of fear-resignation in his chest even colder. “Or don’t want to. I’m not sure. Either way… I’m sorry.”

It’s brief enough compared to his usual rambling that Caleb actually believes him. The gods not wanting to heal him, wanting him to _suffer_ , seems about right. It’s only fair.

Jester is a little more informative, though Caleb wishes she weren’t. “Oh, _Caleb_ ,” she says, and though he can’t see it, he can almost _feel_ her lower lip trembling, the tears filling her eyes. She _is_ the cleric, after all; this is personal. This is failure. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s just- there’s, uhm, there’s nothing- _left_. You need something to work with, if you’re healing, like, skin, or muscle, or- _something_. But there’s not- I mean, I can get rid of the hurt, I can heal it up, but not- regrow them. I can’t do that, I don’t think _anyone_ can.” He can hear the wobble in her voice, the tears glittering on her eyelashes. “I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

“It’s… okay,” he says to each of them, once they’re done, though it’s really not. His smile is forced, toothless. The stained linen over his eye sockets itches. “Thank you, for trying.”

He adapts; of course he does. Of all the things he is, Caleb is a survivor, through luck or through cowardice or through not knowing when to just fucking lay down and _die_. The rest of the Nein treat him like so much broken glass, but the joke’s on them – that’s what he’s always been. So he keeps going, learns to dress himself and eat and drink, reassures Nott far more than she does him, and fights the urge every morning to just _let go_ the way he had after his parents had burned.

It takes three weeks before he has the strength and components to re-summon Frumpkin. It’s hard without his sight – he has to ask Fjord for help with the symbols and the circles and the fine visual details of it, and pray the description is accurate enough that he really _will_ summon his familiar, and not some demonic entity. It’s _humiliating_ , having to rely on another to perform basic magic, a spell that should come to him as easy as breathing – but Fjord is patient, and doesn’t patronise, and it is… bearable. Though in fairness, most things would be bearable in the service of getting his cat back.

When the spell ends, and Frumpkin is sitting there, _his cat_ is sitting there-

He breaks. Hunches over the fey scrap of fur and purring in his lap, and cries, and _cries_ , sobbing and heaving without tears – because they took that from him, too, his tears. Instead, he buries his face into Frumpkin’s soft back, and lets his shoulders shake and his lungs stutter until the twisted knot of misery in his chest loosens enough for him to breathe.

“...Thank you,” he says, finally, without unburying his face from his cat. The words are muffled by fur, and there’s hair in his mouth, but that’s fine, that’s _so much more than fine_. “For- for helping me, helping me get my cat back. Danke. _Danke_.”

It’s easier to thank Fjord for that, than to thank him for staying. To thank _all_ of them for staying, for not just cutting their losses and leaving as soon as they realised he was _useless_. Like this, though… like this, he can be useful. He can _still_ be useful. He can make sure they keep him him around, and Nott too.

He tells himself he wants them to keep him around because they’re useful. Because he still needs them, and she does too. That’s why he wants them to stay.

Fjord shifts, awkwardly – and, as Caleb sinks inside Frumpkin’s head for the first time in _weeks_ , he can _see_ it, not just hear it by the rustle of fabric and scrape of clothing against the floor and walls. The half-orc looks odd through a cat’s eyes, faintly distorted and shades of yellow-brown more than green, but it is still _sight_ , and it is nearly enough to start him sobbing again.

He resists the urge. Just.

“Well, y’know,” says Fjord, clearly unsure how to deal with the Nein’s resident bag-of-cats-crazy wizard and his reaction to his cat, his newly summoned eyes. Handling other people has never been his strong suit, other than when he’s trying to charm his way through an interaction. “It’s nothin’, really, it’s… that’s what friends are for, ain’t it? Happy to help.”

Caleb _doesn’t_ know, has never had friends who would do anything of the sort for him – but he has no desire to argue, and no energy to, to boot. “Ah, well,” he says, instead, scrubbing hands across his tearless, linen-covered eyes. “Thank you, still.”

He slips hands under Frumpkin’s stomach, and lifts the cat to settle around his neck, weathering the familiar swoop of giddiness as the world in front of his eyes moves whilst his body stays still. The rumble of purring against the back of his neck is soothing, therapy for his frayed nerves and the lingering pain behind the linen. Things seem… better, like this. He has his cat, and his sight, and it is- not perfect, but _easier_.

He will adapt. He will learn. He is a survivor, in the end, against his better instincts, broken glass and blackened soul and all. It will take more than being maimed to change that about him – he still has a mission to complete, after all.

“I think,” he says, into the silence, getting to his feet confident and steady for the first time in a week with the help of his borrowed eyes, “that we should, ah… rejoin the others, perhaps, _ja_? Before Jester and Nott buy us pastries and bacon for dinner. I would like-” _To see you again. Your faces. Memorise what they look like, through these eyes._ “-something, something less…”

“Likely to be three-day-old pocket food?” asks Fjord, grimacing – and Caleb can _see_ him grimacing, _he can see it_ , desaturated yellow-beige and blurry but still visible. “Yeah, me too.” He stands up, stretches, and is almost at the now-customary position at Caleb’s elbow to guide him before catching himself. “Oh! Shit, yeah, right,” he says, and grins, gesturing to the door. “Well then. After you.”

And Caleb, to his surprise, smiles back, the expression small and full of steel. When he opens the door and walks through it, his cat around his neck, and his head is held high.

**Author's Note:**

> for the anon on my fic blog who asked me: "Do you know of any fics where Caleb loses his sight or hearing and has to rely on Frumpkin for that? Or basically anything with Frumpkin helping to compensate for physical problems (not just mental health issues, therapy-cat!Frumpkin is great but not what I'm looking for here)." and... i didn't, so i wrote one. six months after the ask was sent. i started writing this in _september_. whoops.
> 
> anyways come hmu @ sparxwrites on tumblr, where i'm (only slightly) more active, if u want more caleb!whump or weird shit.


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